MDFA 3rd Division: O’sheish edge Alpresco FC 1-0

by Chittu Shetty February 6, 2018

5th February,2018-  Two third division play off matches took place here, in St. Xaviers Ground,Parel. In both the matches lower ranked teams registered wins over their higher ranked opponent by identical scoreline. While Kapadia Nagar(KNFC) beat The Soccer Academy 1-0 in group E, O’Sheish Football club conquered Alpresco FC 1-0 in an exciting  group D fixture.

3rd Division Play-off Group D–  O’Sheish Football Club (Shervin 23′) 1-0 Alpresco FC

In the final match of the day, O’Sheish FC faced group toppers Alpresco FC in a must-min match under floodlights. O’Sheish,  prior to this match only managed to draw previous 2 matches and needed an outright victory to keep their hopes of qualifying further. Alpresco was comfortable coming into this match at the back drop of two successive wins.

The match started with loud cheers for both the teams coming from a small but fierce, vocal fans of the respective clubs. Both the teams looked positive from the beginning with justified aggression from O’Sheish. Shervin Sooren operated from both the sides getting able support from the ever-vibrant Faizan Sheikh and Rahil Damani from the middle. Alpresco looked in trouble always when O’Sheish penetrated through left  and right wing continuously .

Soon O’Sheish were rewarded for their persistence when the only goal of the match came at the 23rd minute of the first half. Faizan  and Rahil combined brilliantly initiating the attack from the right touching one touch football. Faizan’s last square pass towards left found Shervin Sooren rushing in from the left after switching sides. The hard working, skillful forward had no hesitations whatsoever as he finished it off with a beautiful strike past the helpless Alpresco keeper.

2nd half started with the scoreline 1-0 as Alpresco tried to dominate the ball possession through aerial balls, their primary strength,a good tactical switch brought on by their coach. It seemed to bring dividends for them for quite a while with most of their attacks coming through left courtesy brave gameplay by Nikhil Ambokar and Mursalin Shaikh with the best chance coming when a beautiful free kick from Amir just outside the penalty box induced header from Alfresco forward but couldn’t put it beyond the O’Sheish Goalie.

O’Sheish turned up the heat everytime when pushed back and finally earned their first and much-need victory in this group which might just see them qualifying to the KO round, finishing second in the group with 5 points from 3 matches,one point lesser than group-topper Alpresco FC. In an unfortunate incident Adnan,the left wing of O’Sheish FC suffered major injury in his left knee and was rushed to hospital straight away.

3rd Division,Play off group E – Kapadia Nagar(KNFC) (Zuber 5′) 1-0 The Soccer Academy

In the final match of group D Kapadia Nagar(KNFC) locked horns with another group topper The Soccer Academy. While The Soccer Academy, all but qualified for the knock-out round with consecutive wins in their first two matches, it was left to see whether KNFC can inflict an upset which could’ve saved them from getting eliminated. The one and only goal from this match came from Zuber Khan in the 5th minute clinching a sensational win for KNFC ,which is their first in this play-off stage. With this win they finished second with 5 points from 3 matches while The Soccer Academy qualified even after today’s loss with one point more than their opponents today.